Achieving net-zero emissions and meeting the Paris Agreement targets by 2050 not only means reducing emissions: it will also require the active elimination of unavoidable CO2 emissions from the atmosphere.
Swiss company Climeworks, founded in 2009, is pioneering innovative technology to meet this goal. The company’s Direct Air Capture and Storage (DAC+S) is designed to combat climate change by removing CO₂ from the air and storing it permanently underground.
Drawing on this technology, Climeworks has developed and runs the world’s two largest direct air capture and storage plants in Iceland: Orca and Mammoth. Orca is the world’s first DAC+S plant, launched in 2021 and combining air capture technology with permanent mineralisation of CO₂ for storage underground. The Mammoth facility was unveiled in May 2024, the company’s largest DAC+S plant yet and around ten times the size of Orca. Climeworks is expanding across the globe, with the Megaton project to follow in 2030 and Gigaton in 2050 to achieve climate impact at scale.
“We’re fighting a global problem, so we really want global partners. BNP Paribas is a truly global bank, so we were excited to find a partner that can support us completely during our international expansion,” says Andreas Aepli, CFO at Climeworks, pointing to cash management, treasury services, foreign currency management, and opening bank accounts, all through a single digital platform.
With plans to build three projects in the United States under the US Department of Energy’s DAC Hubs programme, and consideration of Kenya, Canada, and Norway as possible locations, Climeworks is forging global solutions to tackle this worldwide challenge.
“In order to reach net zero by 2050, we need to remove billions of tons of CO₂ from the air,” says Andreas Aepli, CFO at Climeworks. That means scaling up fast by relying on a banking partner to streamline global growth. “The faster we can get to scale, the faster we will be able to bring the cost down and make this solution accessible for a much wider market.”
In addition to banking services, Climeworks also needs capital to fund its growth, from debt and equity to project finance and access to public sector funding. BNP Paribas has partnered with Climeworks since 2023, combining the Bank’s genuine sustainability mindset and its Low Carbon Transition Group’s tailored solutions with the speed and flexibility needed to support the company’s rapid growth on a worldwide level.
“Climeworks is an important player to reach net zero, which is at the heart of the Bank’s climate strategy,” says Alexander Lokhmatov, Head of Technology Coverage at BNP Paribas Switzerland. “It’s in the DNA of BNP Paribas to support innovative companies like Climeworks to scale up globally,” he adds.